Janet Leach is an English social worker, known for the role she played as an appropriate adult in the questioning of Fred West, one of the two perpetrators of the Gloucester serial murders.
Leach was a thirty-eight-year-old mother of five, divorced from her first husband and training to be a social worker, when in 1994 she was asked to serve in this capacity for Fred West due to his illiteracy and the severity of the charges levelled against him.
When they first met he denied killing his daughter, Heather, to detectives but later confessed to Leach who, due to a confidentiality agreement, couldn't share the information with anyone, including police.
Due to a physical resemblance to Anne McFall, a lover of West's whom he probably murdered before he met Rosemary, untrue rumours spread that she was related to him, or possibly one of his girlfriends.
[3] In 1997, Leach lodged a complaint with the Court of Appeal seeking the right to sue police for compensation on the grounds that she suffered posttraumatic stress disorder as a result of her work as an appropriate adult for Fred West.
Commenting on the series, retired police officer Bennet, who was in charge of the investigation, said that although the portrayals of Fred and Rose West were "hauntingly accurate", providing "an even deeper insight" into their psyche, Leach's role in the case was exaggerated.
[5][6] Writing in the Independent about the ITV television dramatisation Appropriate Adult James Rampton states "...the exchanges between West and Leach make for chilling subject matter.